


history hangs her well

by haipollai



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adjusting to normal life, Human Experimentation, M/M, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 05:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3107798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haipollai/pseuds/haipollai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What the fuck," Sam comes back over with a binder held open. There's a picture of the same woman paper clipped to the top corner.</p>
<p>Name: Drew, Jessica</p>
<p>Birthdate: 1965 April 6</p>
<p>Notes: Natal experiments incorr-</p>
<p>There's a hiss as the cryo chamber begins its warmup cycle and Steve takes a quick step back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	history hangs her well

**Author's Note:**

> began as an experiment to add jessica into the mcu, and kind of took a few months to grow

Steve, Bucky and Sam find the cryo unit while outside Geneva. The base was one recently discovered by a new UN organized organization called SWORD. Steve had met them once, he couldn't deny he liked the woman given the director position but didn't trust them. SWORD had received a tip from an unknown source of a former research facility used by HYDRA located in Switzerland. The Swiss had immediately demanded something be done, the Prime Minister likely not wanting any suspicion that he could be tied to his former countryman's experiments.

SWORD had passed the information onto Steve, claiming good will and he was closer.

He took it with a grain of salt. Steve takes point into the base, Bucky in the middle, Sam in the rear.

"I've been here," Bucky whispers when they reach the main lab. It's empty of anyone, but with a feel of recent abandonment. The tech is some of the newest Steve's seen, top of the line computers. All turned off. File cabinets stand with their drawers hanging open like jagged teeth. One had obviously had any paperwork it contained lit on fire there in the drawer.

Bucky pushes past Steve and leads down a hallway, away from the control area. From the hallway branch smaller rooms. All of them are as empty as everything else.

"They bolted fast," Sam says, stopping to look into one of the rooms.

"They knew about the tip," Steve says, his voice pitched low as if in a tomb. Each side room was clearly a small lab, different tools and equipment stand in each, some smashed and destroyed. Some simply left. Bucky stops at one room, inside is nothing but a table with a strange metal circle over one end. Steve's seen it before. Bucky sketched it out for him. "Here-"

"They made me," Bucky snarls and with his metal hand grabs the circular contraption and bends it out of shape.

"No," Sam speaks softly, standing in the door with Steve. "They broke you."

Bucky shrugs, not seeing the difference but before Steve can try to explain a sound catches his ears. A gentle whirring as if some piece of technology had been triggered. He holds up a hand to get them both to be quiet. Shifting his grip on the shield, he follows the hallway further, to the very last room. The door is still locked but he easily breaks it.

Inside is a cryo unit, at first he thinks it's one that Bucky was kept in but then he looks closer. Still functioning, still occupied. "Must have heard some fans kick in," Steve mumbles, taking a few steps forward to look inside.

"Steve," Bucky's voice is strained but for now he's holding together. They can't linger long though.

"It's a woman," Steve says. "Do you know how?"

Bucky hesitates but makes his way to the console, very purposefully not looking at the cryo chamber. Sam pokes around separately, looking through binders and folders left in the room while Bucky hits away at the computer. Steve wonders if he actually knows what he's doing or if he's just guessing. It feels like they're all just guessing.

"What the fuck," Sam comes back over with a binder held open. There's a picture of the same woman paper clipped to the top corner.

Name: Drew, Jessica

Birthdate: 1965 April 6

Notes: Natal experiments incorr-

There's a hiss as the cryo chamber begins its warmup cycle and Steve takes a quick step back.

"Who is she?" Bucky asks. Is she like me, is what he doesn't.

"She was a HYDRA experiment," Sam answers, reading from the file.

"Another attempt to make the serum," Steve snarls, hands clenching into fists. Some days he wishes the entire program had never happened even if it meant he would have died seventy years ago from a bad cold, too many others have been hurt in between trying to recreate him. The only thing making it worth it is Sam and Bucky in the here and now. 

"Her name is Jessica, doesn't say where she's from. Was born in the sixties though," Sam continues. "Another old timer like you two."

The door swings open though she's still unconscious. "Is she-" Bucky half asks but then she takes in a deep strained breath and her eyes fly open.

"Nein!" She staggers forward, hands hitting Steve's chest and the force propels him backwards. He hits the wall with a thud, the place where her hands had touched him stinging like a bug bite. Bucky and Sam immediately have their weapons on her and she raises her hands again.

"Wait!" Steve yells. "Wait. We're here to help. Do you know English?"

She eyes him suspiciously but comes out of her defensive crouch. "Of course I do." Her accent is British, catching him by surprise. "I was- they were-" She turns to look at the cryo chamber she had stepped out of. Sam moves as she starts to sway and catches her before she hits the ground. "My parents gave me- they said- I didn't want to-" She's holding back sobs but only barely, sucking in deep gasping breaths to shove the emotion back.

"Lets get out of here and we'll talk," Steve says. She nods wordlessly and lets Sam and Bucky get her to her feet. Bucky seems more than grateful to get out of the room and Steve takes point to get them out, unholstering his sidearm just in case.

"You're not HYDRA," she whispers, reaching out to touch his shield, hanging on his back. "I'm sorry. I assumed you were."

"You know the last year you were conscious?" Sam asks. "Lots probably happened since you were put in that thing."

"I never really saw outside the labs much. I think-oh…" Her voice fades away as they reach the main door and step outside. It's late afternoon and the lab is strategically placed in the middle of nowhere, almost in the Swiss Alps. The view is beautiful, even Steve has to stop and admire it. "Well this is something."

"Switzerland," Bucky says.

"Makes sense, my parents lab was in the mountains around here."

"Easy access to dirty money."

"Barnes," Sam hisses but he shrugs, unrepentant.

Jessica just smiles. "He's not wrong. What year is it?"

They all share a look before Steve gets the feeling they've nominated him to answer. "Twenty fourteen."

"I believe the last year I was conscious was in the eighties." She stares away at the mountains, her hands pressed against her thighs. "They'd be dead most likely."

"I'm sorry, it doesn't stop hurting but-"

"You know?" She snaps, a hint of nervous laughter in her voice but then she looks at him and stops. "You do know," she whispers almost in awe. She looks at Bucky who gives a small nod and Sam who shakes his head with an apologetic smile. "I think I need to know everything."

Steve gestures towards the car. "Get in, we've got a nice place in Geneva for the next few nights."

-

He calls Sharon on the way. He's not sure if she'll really be able to do something but maybe with her contacts in the CIA and her recent liaison position with SWORD might give her an edge Steve definitely doesn't have.

The room in Geneva is barely big enough for Steve, Sam and Bucky but they can fit together on one bed and leave the other for Jessica. She showers first, spending a long time under the spray.

"It gets to you," Bucky says, not quite looking at either of them. "Waking up from the cryo. The protective gunk is like slime." His hand tightens into a fist. Steve carefully catches it in his own, not trying to loosen it but so he knows he's not alone. Jessica finally comes out, wearing some of their old clothes, too big for her but she seems comfortable being swamped in fabric.

"Asking how you're feeling is probably a stupid question," Sam says.

"A bit but it's kind of you to think to ask." She curls up in the other bed, arms tight around her legs. Steve feels like he's looking at Bucky, lost and scared and wanting desperately to hide it. "You have to reason to look after me."

"You have no reason to come with us," Steve counters.

Her eyes are green and Steve hates his first thought is of poison and venom. "I was not going to be left alone in the mountains."

Sam throws his head back and laughs. The sound makes Jessica jump in surprise. "Not the explanation I was expecting, real clever though."

Jessica's eyes dart between all of them and she slowly eases, relaxing back against the bed. "So now what?"

"Your parents were associated with Hydra," Bucky says bluntly He gets up and moves to stand next to the bed she's on, purposefully looming over her. Steve starts to sit up to stop him but Sam holds up a hand. Jessica just looks calmly up at Bucky, assessing the situation. He's seen that same calm look in Bucky's eyes before. "They worked for them and made you do the same."

"I've seen your face before, you're the Winter Soldier," Jessica says with that unearthly calm, but her eyes are ice. "If you can join the other side, why can't I?"

Bucky stares blankly for a second as a flush spreads over his cheeks. "I don't…" He glances back at Steve and he looks slightly overwhelmed. He snaps his focus back to Jessica. "Why? You can walk away right now, you're out of the mountains."

Jessica pauses and looks away from Bucky, down at her hands. There's no sense of someone being cowed or submitting. "Because I wasn't lucky enough to be rewritten each time."

Steve knows Bucky has never seen what he was put through as lucky but the look in Jessica's eyes when she looks back at them shows what the alternative is. Bucky takes a step back and away, his interrogation over. There is no apology, and none of them have the right to give it to her. Sam leans forward though, arms on his knees. "How old?" He asks, his voice gentle but sincere.

"Six. The first time I understood." She smiles tightly. "But they kept me in cryo so who knows for sure." Her eyes move between the three of them and she leans back on her hands, making herself bigger and Steve realizes what it must look like, the three of them facing her down. 

He pulls backward, leaning more against the headboard, making himself smaller. Sam pats his thigh absently. "There's no way to shed them off like an ugly sweater," he says. 

"I know," Jessica whispers. "I know but…" 

-

Sharon herself shows up the next morning, banging on their hotel room with an armful of coffees. She pushes past Bucky as he groggily opens the door, not even time to tense up before she's inside. She takes a quick scan of the room, frowns hard at Steve as if every wrong detail is his fault.

"I thought you were-"

"I caught a plane." She sits down at the edge of Jessica's bed who is sitting up now, watching Sharon through guarded eyes. "Sharon Carter."

"Jessica."

"I work for the CIA and I sort of work for SHIELD- it's complicated- I'm not going to question you or anything," she says, somehow balancing soothing and crisp to the point. Steve didn't know Sharon could be that soothing. "That's why I came and didn't send some lowly stooge."

"So now what?" Jessica asks, she carefully sips at the coffee and once she determines it's not drugged or poisoned drinks more freely.

Steve nudges at Sam and nods at the bathroom. Sam disappears without a word, understanding that Steve wants to get them out so Sharon and Jessica can have a moment. Bucky flicks the rubber band he usually uses for his hair at them in annoyance, there's no room for a third person in there.

When they come back out after taking their time, Sam steals kisses once they've both brushed their teeth, Sharon and Jessica are sitting side by side on the bed and Bucky's up on the other. They seem to be in a lull in the conversation when Steve and Sam rejoin them. "I'll take Jessica back to the States, I can get her in easier."

Steve glances at Bucky who nods back.

-

Jessica looks around Sharon's apartment, it's not much, very few personal touches. It has the feel of someone who moves around a lot, who doesn't feel comfortable with stuff. Jessica runs her finger over the bland table top, smoothed down and fake wood. Sharon is in the kitchen making a cup of coffee. The trip back had been long, Jessica had been too tense to sleep through any of it and she doesn't understand how Sharon was able to. But now Jessica feels herself grow twitchy and anxious from lack of sleep.

Sharon comes over and leaves a full mug of coffee on the table before disappearing again to presumably grab another for herself. Jessica looks at the coffee for a minute before going over to pick it up.

"This has all happened very fast," she says when she hears Sharon's footsteps approach again. "Why do you trust me?"

"Who says I do?" Sharon says matter of factly and seats herself at the table, leaning back precariously on the chair's back legs. "I don't not trust you." She tilts her head to look at Jessica. "I know you can probably kill me or I don't know, I've seen some records of the Hydra's agent codenamed Spider, you can probably make me kill myself."

Jessica feels slightly sick and has to sit down at the sudden weakness in her legs. She will be studied and cut apart. She presses a hand to her chest, thinking of the long surgical scar between her breasts. We want to see your heart darling, it's so special.

"But I don't think you will," Sharon continues, her eyes have narrowed, she's watching Jessica carefully. "My aunt taught me how to read people. And I think you're lost and overwhelmed and trying to hide it."

"What if you're wrong?"

"Bucky thinks he's gonna snap and kill everyone too," Sharon says. "He hasn't yet. They raised you but they fucked with his head, implanted shit so if he hasn't, I'm willing to put money on you not either."

"Your grammar is awful," Jessica says because it's easier. It had been easier to be brave and stupid in front of Captain America and the Winter Soldier. They were identities, but Sharon is something else and she can feel tiredness numbing her mind.

"So anyway," Sharon huffs. "Way I see it, you've got two big options. Restart. Do whatever you want. Or I help you get the intel you need to join Steve and Bucky and Sam on their crusade."

Jessica blinks in surprise, she doesn't know what to do with a choice. She knows how to follow orders, she knows how to be a good agent but she's never had to make her own choices. Her life had always been under the control of someone else, parents and handlers and other agents. "I only woke up two days ago."

"Three I think but-" She smiles sheepishly. "But yea. It's ok to break apart you know. If you need to. I've got a spare room that's yours."

"I think just sleep for now." She lets Sharon touch her elbow softly and lead her down a hallway to the room, the bed is not made, Sharon obviously doesn't have guests that often but Jessica collapses in it without caring about sheets or blankets. The soft surface feels too soft, she doesn't remember if she's ever slept in a bed before but her body is too exhausted. Not even the sudden fear that maybe this is a lie, or a trick, and she'll be thrown back into cryo the second she closes her eyes keeps her conscious.

Sharon isn't around when she wakes up but there's a note saying she'll be back in a day or two and a spare key. Jessica could disappear but she doesn't know where to go so she stays on Sharon's couch and watches the news. 

-

Sharon comes in after two days looking annoyed and worn out and drops onto the couch beside Jessica without a word. After ten minutes she ends up asleep on Jessica's shoulder and she doesn't have the heart to try and move her.

They stay like that until Jessica's stomach grumbles loud enough she knows she has to move.

-

She hates feeling useless and it only takes a week before she's restless. She explores more and more of the city, she'd been there years and years ago and her faint memories overlay the real world around her. In the dead of night she takes Sharon out once, wanting to let go and Sharon takes her to a stretch of warehouses and together they race over rooftops. Jessica finds herself laughing even as the wind tries to steal her voice. 

"Maybe you should help people."

"What?"

"I think you could." Sharon stops and stares up at the sky. The light of the city makes it impossible to see any stars, not like being up in the mountains with it's sharp clean air. Sharon pulls her leather jacket tighter around her and glances at Jessica from the corner of her eye. "I see a lot of cases that people really need help with but the agency decides it's not worth the time."

"I don't…" She doesn't know how to help people. She isn't good enough to help people. She is still so desperately in need of help herself.

"I'll bring some home, let you decide. Come on." She takes off without waiting for anything else from Jessica so she's left with nothing to do but follow. She turns the idea over and over in her mind as they run. Her limbs move, steady and sure, driven by muscle memory and training while she twists and turns mentally. Lost and unsure, still feeling tainted and broken from Hydra. Each night she wakes up with her parents gleaming smiles matching their gleaming scalpels. 

She wishes she knew what another life could be like, another childhood. It doesn't seem fair sometimes that other people get a choice, that they have a chance to grow up and be given the idea of the world as a decent place. She thinks in her own way, her mother loved her.

Her father- she chokes up suddenly and stumbles to her knees. Sharon is there a moment later, kneeling in front of her. Her hands are sticky with sweat but Jessica doesn't care. She had been given permission to break but didn't expect it to be here, on the roof of some empty building. She clings to Sharon until she can breath again.

"I want to help people," she whispers. She doesn't say she wants to help herself, hopefully Sharon hears that too.

-

It starts with Sharon asking her advice on something she's working on. Jessica wonders if it's a test, the way Sharon carefully words each question. As if she's not asking so much as feeding her information. Nothing else is said for days, Sharon continues her comings and goings and Jessica tries to do something. Find herself maybe. She has papers thanks to Sharon, they proclaim her twenty seven and born in Birmingham. 

It's terrifying to think of where she could go.

She feels like a coward, staying on Sharon's couch but she was trained to never go into a situation unprepared. She doesn't even know how to prepare for this. The anxiety comes unexpectedly, when she thinks she's fine when suddenly it overwhelms her with something simple. She doesn't know what a CD is, or who the British Prime Minister is, or the names of new countries since she last opened her eyes.

Sharon finds her once and sits beside her, not quite touching while Jessica gets her breathing back under control. They sit side beside for what feels like ages.

"I want to take you to meet someone," Sharon finally says. "Don't worry not an agent, just to meet."

"I…ok." She doesn't know when she started trusting Sharon but maybe it was that very first meeting when Sharon pushed a cup of coffee in her hands and wasn't scared to touch.

The meeting is with a young woman staying in an apartment that screams cheap, pay by the week. She only takes off the chain when she sees Sharon there. Her arms stay folded firmly over her chest, defensive, waiting for the attack. Jessica lingers back by the door, letting Sharon approach. "I want you to meet my friend, Jessica, I'm going to ask her to follow your husband. Get anything she can to put him away. Ok?" Sharon asks, her voice soft and calm.

The woman - girl - looks up at Jessica and back at her. "And then what?"

"Then we get you home and make sure you're safe." Sharon looks at Jessica, and she's not entirely sure who the statement is for.

The job is easy though but it feels good, getting out, doing something. She hasn't used anything Hydra has given her since being woken up, she's refused to think of the sting or climbing but now she slips up buildings to follow the boyfriend towards his apartment, to get a vantage point that no one will look for. Even in this day and age with green monsters in the news and aliens showing up in obscure states, no one thinks to look up.

And when she gets to go back to the girl, say the jerk is going to be dealt with, it feels even better.

Sharon stays outside on the street while Jessica goes in and when she comes back out, she loops an arm over Jessica's shoulder. "Drink, my treat."

"Everything is your treat," Jessica says. It's not bitter, but the pressure that comes with everything in this new life settling on her shoulders. The job was good, it kept her busy and it felt good. The relief in the woman's eyes made it worth it.

Sharon looks at her out of the corner of her eye and smiles. "Heard something from a friend. Someone willing to pay for a little off the books investigating."

"Let's get the drink first." She smiles tightly at Sharon, trying to get back the ease she felt earlier. "You'll need to tell me what to order." 

The files show up a few days later. The first one is simple, and so is the next but somehow Sharon ends up settling down beside her and going through the details with her and they jot down notes together and Sharon has suggestions that Jessica would never consider on her own. They work well together.

Sharon doesn't ask much of her, doesn't expect her to be anything but decent and Jessica finds herself wanting to be more than just that. It's a strange reward when she manages to make Sharon laugh, when their hands touch and Jessica is left feeling warm.

This is nothing she has ever faced before, she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know what normal is. They sit with tangled feet and argue over whether a husband really could have pulled off a murder or a teacher a theft. Sharon calls her Private Eye and Gumshoe and makes her watch noir movies when both of them are haunted by nightmares.

Jessica wants this to be normal.

-

Sharon looks at her through heavy lidded eyes. She's in bed, had come in when Jessica was still asleep and Jessica finds her there the next morning. She's managed to learn Sharon's overly complex coffee maker and when it's not started when Jessica wakes up, she goes to check that Sharon is alright.

She's bandaged, mostly around her right shoulder but Jessica can see blood staining the blanket further down. She hisses softly and immediately strips it off. There are more bandages around her left calf and what looks like a poorly made splint on her right ankle.

Sharon wakes up at the attention but doesn't say anything as Jessica works on rebandaging everything.

"I'll be ok," she mumbles at some point.

"Oh yea?" Jessica says, trying to keep her voice steady but it comes out sharp and bitter. "You could have called. Or woken me up. Or-" She bites her lower lip.

"I'll be ok," Sharon repeats though it sounds more like a whine. Jessica's hands don't shake as she takes care of Sharon, it's the only time she's ever felt grateful for the training she was put through. She know if something happened to Sharon, she could go to Steve and Sam and Bucky, but she doesn't want to.

"You better be."

Sharon looks up at her and Jessica gets the feeling she doesn't let herself be seen like this very often. "Thanks," she mumbles and closes her eyes. Jessica wonders if she should go but decides instead to settle against the headboard, just to keep an eye on Sharon, just make sure she's really going to be ok. She thinks of cryo chambers, an old broken memory that isn't much more than impressions.

She knows nothing will happen to Sharon if Jessica is just in the other room. She knows that, but can't leave. So she sits, watching Sharon rest.

"I killed my father," she whispers. It feels weird, to put the words out there. "I lost control, I saw him trying to make another me. They put me in cryo afterwards but it didn't change I had killed him."

Sharon's eyes open and Jessica feels her breath catch in her throat, strangling her from the inside. "'S ok," she whispers. "It's not obviously but- shitty people like to make other people do their shitty work." Her eyes close again but she moves, wrapping herself more firmly around Jessica as if sensing she was ready to bolt. "Relax. I'm injured so you gotta cater to me."

"You're a brat." Hesitantly, she curls a hand in Sharon's hair, carefully combing her fingers through.

"Mhm. Aunt told me that lots." Her voice slurs as she falls back asleep, but Jessica doesn't stop the gentle touch, not sure if it's for Sharon or to keep herself calm anymore. Maybe both of them. Maybe she can do things like this now, look after other people.

-

Steve lets himself into Sharon's apartment, she gave him a key months ago, he's not even sure if she remembers but no one had answered when he knocked. He blinks in surprise to see Jessica coming out of the bathroom wrapped in only a towel.

"You look better," he says carefully when she doesn't do the expected thing and bolt for a bedroom and closed door. "I heard you had moved in."

Jessica opens her mouth to say something before hesitating and rethinking it. "Sharon has been helpful."

"Yea, she's like that. Even if she won't admit it."

A smile tugs on her lips. "She ran out to pick up dinner, I guess…make yourself comfortable?" Her voice lilts up, looking confused at what proper behavior should even be.

"Nah. Just tell her I stopped by." He lets himself out, trying to hide his grin.

-

"I should have gotten you out more."

"I'm not a pet." 

Sharon pauses and looks up from her paperwork at the kitchen table to give Jessica an unimpressed look. "Come on, I'm like the worst social person ever. Everyone I know is from work. Or dead. Both." She taps her nails against the table.

"I didn't exactly learn how to be a good friend as a kid." She gets up to join Sharon at the table. "Didn't really learn how to be much of a good person."

Sharon reaches out and takes her hand, giving it a warm squeeze. Jessica doesn't think before turning her hand to hold Sharon's back and they sit there for a long time, neither really acknowledging their grip on each other but neither pulling away either. It feels good enough, more than enough. She knows she didn't age properly, her growth was manipulated and she knows there are things she's missing. Things she should want but doesn't.

But this, holding hands and listening to each of Sharon's steady breathes as she works, this feels like something she could want.

Sharon glances at her out of the corner of her eye and suddenly Sharon is pulling her over and her lips are soft on Jessica's. "Yea?" She whispers as she pulls back.

"I don't know how."

"Don't worry, this I can definitely teach." Sharon smirks and lets go of her hand as she sits back in her seat but she stretches her legs over Jessica's lap. There isn't any pushing for anything else. They sit there, close and touching and sharing space. Jessica feels grounded and steady.


End file.
